Hailee Steinfeld Joins Tommy Lee Jones' The Homesman

Actress Hailee Steinfeld got her big breakthrough role in a western, earning an Academy Award nomination starring alongside Jeff Bridges in the Coen brothers' True Grit, and now she's set to make her return to the genre with a role in Tommy Lee Jones' new directorial effort The Homesman.

Based on an original screenplay co-written by Jones, Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley Oliver, the film tells the story of a man and a woman who work together to bring three women driven insane by the frontier life back to Iowa. The young actress will be completely surrounded by incredible acting talent, as Jones and Hilary Swank are set to play the the two leaders of the group while Meryl Streep, John Lithgow, Tim Blake Nelson and James Spader are also on-board.

According to Deadline, which first reported the casting news, Steinfeld will be playing "a poor, simple, and barefooted teenager named Tabitha Hutchinson," though the site makes does not mention how exactly she will be fitting into the plot.

Since her breakout role in 2010 Steinfeld has actually been completely absent from the silver screen, but that will change in a major way this year. In addition to starring as Petra Arkanian in the highly-anticipated sci-fi thriller Ender's Game, she'll be playing the female lead in director Carlo Carlei's adaptation of Romeo and Juliet; has a role opposite Guy Pearce and Kristen Wiig in Liza Johnson's Hateship, Loveship; and is currently filming the McG action flick Three Days To Kill with Kevin Costner.